The Hugo Awards ceremony was held last night at this year’s Worldcon in Chicago and Game of Thrones took home a statue! The Hugos are a prestigious set of awards given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. This was the first year that Game of Thrones was eligible. It was nominated in the category Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form, alongside the films Captain America, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, Hugo and Source Code. Ron Donachie and George R. R. Martin were on hand to accept the award, on behalf of HBO. Video provided by Tower of the Hand.

Winter Is Coming: Congrats to the cast and crew for another well-deserved award! Looking forward to the Emmys, where hopefully more recognition will be forthcoming.

A little payback on JK Rowling for Harry Potter stealing A Song of Ice and Fire’s Hugo for Best novel.

Also, in my book, this officially means Game of Thrones has supplanted Battlestar Galactica’s status some 7 years ago as the best show on television, with real moral ideas and characters (that show turned into a trainwreck in its second half, as GRRM has criticized).

spacechampion: Yes, everyone knows great art is accomplished by torture and intimidation, not talent, skill and freedom.

I know a few professional authors who wouldn’t agree with you on any of those points. More often than not, talent and skill are something that develop over many years of practicing their craft, not some intrinsic quality the author possesses. They are also qualities that can diminish (or enhance, by that same token) over time.

Having a goal is important in any endeavor, artistic or otherwise. Having a deadline is also important. I’m not saying that Martin needs to adhere to any timeline that the fans have set for him, but it’d be nice to know that he has a goal set for himself other than, ‘It’ll he done when it’s done.’

I don’t get this idea that fans of his work shouldn’t want him to complete this series in a timely manner. That we shouldn’t hope that one of his biggest priorities – when it comes to his job (here, a “job”

spacechampion: Yes, everyone knows great art is accomplished by torture and intimidation, not talent, skill and freedom.

I know a few professional authors who wouldn’t agree with you on any of those points. More often than not, talent and skill are something that develop over many years of practicing their craft, not some intrinsic quality the author possesses. They are also qualities that can diminish (or enhance, by that same token) over time.

Having a goal is important in any endeavor, artistic or otherwise. Having a deadline is also important. I’m not saying that Martin needs to adhere to any timeline that the fans have set for him, but it’d be nice to know that he has a goal set for himself other than, ‘It’ll he done when it’s done.’

I don’t get this idea that fans of his work shouldn’t want him to complete this series in a timely manner. That we shouldn’t hope that one of his biggest priorities – when it comes to his job – is finishing this series comes across as a bit bit disingenuous. I don’t know the man personally, and am making no claim to comment on who he is as a person, but that doesn’t really play any part in my concern about his finishing this series in a satisfying manner. That said, this is the same guy who blasted Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse for “ruining” Lost by overly complicating things and introducing so many sub-plots that they couldn’t possibly wrap them all up in a satisfying manner (and if AFfC & ADwD are any indication…).

Maybe what I’m ultimately trying to say is that Martin should put his money where his mouth is, so to speak, and show that he’s dedicated to finishing off this story with the ending it deserves. It has nothing to do with “torture” and/or “intimidation”.

Congratulations to GRRM, D&D, HBO, GoT writers, cast, and crew for winning a wonderfully prestigious award against really excellent competition! A woman hopes that this is but the first of many awards to come for your excellent work!

Regarding GRRM’s writing timeline…he is an artist and will pursue his art in a manner that works for HIM. We will wait. It is known. The fact that he has read new chapters at previous gatherings and also mentions the pressure he feels from people pushing him to “hurry up and finish the next book” reveals that his intentions are to finish his quest.

According to these numbers GoT won by the biggest margin of the evening, getting almost 50% of the votes. Pretty impressive when you consider this is not a fanboy-competition seeing how ADWD endend up dead last in the Best Novel category.

“That said, this is the same guy who blasted Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse for “ruining” Lost by overly complicating things and introducing so many sub-plots that they couldn’t possibly wrap them all up in a satisfying manner”

I don’t recall that being GRRM’s primary complaint. On the contrary, he’s always said he enjoyed LOST’s complicated storylines and numerous subplots and large cast. His complaint was solely restricted to the fact that the payoff in LOST was not to his (or many other fans’) satisfaction and there were too many questions left unaddressed (let alone unresolved).

Pastor_of_Muppets,
“That said, this is the same guy who blasted Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse for “ruining” Lost by overly complicating things and introducing so many sub-plots that they couldn’t possibly wrap them all up in a satisfying manner”

Adam Whitehead:
His complaint was solely restricted to the fact that the payoff in LOST was not to his (or many other fans’) satisfaction and there were too many questions left unaddressed (let alone unresolved).

Well, you are practically saying the same thing.
Apart from Lost though, what matters is that it’s impossible to disagree with what Pastor_of_Muppets says. His argument covers each and every fan of any work out there. It’s so eloquently put, right on target and represents the common denominator of every voice in the fandom.

Hugos now is another beast. They are sometimes useful when one lacks any piece of information about a book he/she is thinking of acquiring and reading. Something unheard and completely new. If that book is carrying along a Hugo, well, it’s something.
On the other hand, when you already red a novel, formed your own opinion, good, bad or mixed, why in heavens would you care for Hugos or any other kind of award? Would that change its quality or your personal opinion? Unlikely.

For a TV series though is very important. They have these things called budget and sales so anything that can boost up these two increases the chances of the show’s viability and promises a higher quality of product. So congratulations to D&D, cast and crew of GoT and everyone that participated to make this dream come true for us fans. I truly wish for many more awards the following season as a recognition of their excellent work. Keep up guys!

In both interviews, he makes it pretty clear that he felt that the story got away from the creators. That if they could “tie everything together” (which would indicate that things were complicated, as they were on the show) the show would have been one of the best…

Basically, his complaints boiled down to what I said in the first place – Lost didn’t deliver on the considerable amount of promise the set-up it had given. I’m not sure how what I’m quoted as saying isn’t the major complaint George had with the show… At all.

George RR Martin’s tenure committee has reviewed his CV, and they concluded that he has a disproportionate number of conference visits/media appearances to original, sole authored publications. Tenure DENIED.